The Big Hit stars Mark Wahlberg as Melvin Smiley. Despite being a professional contract killer, Melvin is a little teddy bear. He is such a push over in fact, he will do ANYTHING to keep people from disliking him.

Low on cash, he decides with his co-workers, to take a kidnapping side job. Little do they know that the girl they are kidnapping is the goddaughter of their boss. But the biggest thing on Melvin’s mind is keeping everyone around him happy.

Everything falls apart for him when he is fighting with his mistress, his gold-digger fiances’ parents disapprove of him, the kidnapping goes to shambles, and his coworkers decide to throw him under the bus so they appear innocent.

Lucky for Melvin, the kidnapping victim teaches him a valuable lesson. You cannot please everyone.

The acting in this movie does not stand out. And many scenes are so in the time period, it would be hard for someone outside of the 90’s to understand it. There is a lot of ‘green screen’ action and fake smoke and mirrors. Sometimes, it tries so hard to be visually ‘hip’, and doesn’t realize that years down the road, it just looks like a joke.

However, on a similar note, the script seems ahead of its time. The style of the comedy and parody of a hit mans life is well balanced. Although corny at times, the jokes are for the most part, dead on. The movie is sprinkled with many inside jokes to keep it interesting. The movie was also very well paced.

I’m sure John Woo had something to do with the ‘slick’ feel of the movie. The opening shoot out was reminiscent of ‘Hard Boiled’ and most welcome. And does anyone know where I can get Mark Wahlberg’s yellow gun-hands jacket?!?! That’s tight! The icing on the cake was Melvin’s yellow Pontiac Firebird.

Lou Diamond Phillips also was great and you can tell he had a lot of fun in the role. As far as acting goes, he carried the movie.

All in all, 3 stars. Good solid fun. But I wouldn’t pay more than $9 for it.